Hacker News Reader

Comment by sandGorgon | Hacker News Reader

weird question - is there any scifi around finance ? Cryptocurrency, etc. I feel it is weird that almost every piece of tech has had a scifi runway leading to it (VR, AI, robots, clean energy, etc)... but not finance.

Maybe I'm missing something

View on HN

You might want to check out Accelerando by Charles Stross. It predates Bitcoin and the subsequent explosion of cryptocurrencies, but it touches on some similar ideas, e.g. quasi-artificially-intelligent autonomous corporations.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that every interstellar colony in search of good fortune must be in need of a banker”. Neptune’s Brood also by Charles Stross has slow money transferred between two star systems requiring authentication from a third system. The plot is what happens when a transaction has not been completed. Also robots. And pirates.

It’s not exactly crypto currency as we know it, but Charles Stross’s “Neptune’s Brood”[0] spends a lot of time discussing the challenges of interstellar finance.

——-

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15985402-neptune-s-brood

Definitely the geekiest finance/sci-fi book out there.

bought! thanks for that.

New York 2140 has a strong financial plotline. Plus it's a great book, loved it.

https://www.amazon.com/New-York-2140-Stanley-Robinson/dp/031...

Seconded. Hilarious, poignant, and just all around weird. KSR does it again :)

Manu Saadia's Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek is kinda the reverse: it is an examination of Star Trek's post-scarcity economy, how matter replicators change everything, and what people do with their free time when they don't have to work. Here is a transcript from an NPR interview with Paul Krugman about Saadia's book:

https://www.marketplace.org/2016/09/07/world/economist-paul-...

Cryptonomicon is probably what you're looking for.

This is definitely one of my favorite books.

mine too - but not finance. Its more general crypto, etc.

True. REAMDE (same author) is more on the nose, but I also didn't enjoy it as much as a book. Really, Neal Stephenson just doesn't do books with only one major focus.

I think the classic in this from is "cryptonomicon" by neal stephenson. This got me thinking about the implications of secure anonymous transactions years ago, well before any general public knowlegde of blockchain/bitcoin type concepts.

What is the role goverment is they can't tax people/companies? How does a government fulfill that role if they can't raise money?

Hostile Takover by Susan Shwartz. Not sure it's exactly what you're thinking of, but worth reading - written by someone who is a bona fide finance person as well an SF author.

Rainbow’s End has a bunch of crypto-ish stuff in it, as do the books from Hannu Rajaniemj

thanks for Hannu Rajaniemj - it sounds fascinating. Bought!

Again - not crypto in general, but financial stuff. that's what i dont see written.

There's Daemon by Daniel Suarez that I think directly inspired the DAO.

Not recent, but Norstilia by Cordwainer Smith is a classic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com